I’m Tifani Rose, and this is the work I came back to. I grew up making art every weekend with my mother and my aunt. Painting, pottery, anything we could get our hands on. I loved it, but I never saw it as a career.

For a long time, I tried to figure out who I was. After my kids were born, I started healing in ways I didn’t know I needed. Somewhere in that healing, I picked up a brush again for the first time in years. Art is where I see myself and the women around me, clearly. Most of those women didn’t get the chance to be their full, authentic selves. I’m the first of many generations who can.

So I paint us. The afros, the hair, the culture, the second- generation in-between of being raised by immigrant parents and navigating a world that wasn’t always built for you. I find beauty in the ordinary. In the way we care for our hair, raise our daughters, and hold our families together. In learning to love myself, I was told to change.

This work is for the women doing the same.

In my personal life, I’m married to my college sweetheart, Anthony, and we have two kids, Kingston and Zora. They’re the reason I came back to this. They’re the reason it matters.

Tifani Rose